International Social Work in Poverty and in Gender Inequality Contexts: Contributions from Feminist and the Capability Approaches

Abstract

This article reflects on poverty and gender inequality from the perspective of International Social Work, offering key concepts for their analysis and practice from two main theoretical contributions. Firstly, the capability approach, which demonstrates how a material index for poverty measures does not reflect the complexity of poverty, because it makes individuals, groups and communitarian potentials virtually invisible. Secondly, feminist contributions, which analyse and redefine concepts such as home and work, demarcating the context and allowing the practice of equality and non discrimination principle. Lastly, I show how the different international policies have tried to improve the status of women as they defined female roles in specific societies.